In a landmark decision, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has ruled that digital images of completed absentee and mail-in ballots are to be considered public records.
The case began when Previte submitted RTKL requests to the Erie County Board of Elections, seeking access to digital images of all mail-in and absentee ballots, as well as images of the outer envelopes and polling place ballots from the November 2020 election.
Previte then appealed to the Office of Open Records, which sided with her for the mail-in and absentee ballots but upheld the denial for polling place ballots.
This decision was overturned by the Commonwealth Court on Wednesday, which found that the digital images of absentee and mail-in ballots are indeed public records.
Judge Ellen Ceisler, who authored the majority opinion, said that completed absentee and mail-in ballots, once removed from ballot boxes or voting machines, are to be treated as public records and can be obtained through an RTKL request as long as they follow the Election Code's rules of disclosure and do not include any information that identifies the individuals who cast those ballots.
Candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Natalie Clawson, praised this ruling, stating, "Huge win for election integrity in Pennsylvania! Utah needs to follow Pennsylvania's example and declare that the digital images of mail-in ballots are public record."
"The lower court used some twisted logic to say the ballot images were somehow "Contents of voting machines and, thus, were shielded from RTKL requests." Yes, images of the ballots are taken by the machine but they're not part of the machine.
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